Human hair becomes soiled due to its contact with the surrounding environment and from sebum secreted by the scalp. The soiling of the hair causes it to have a dirty or greasy feel, and an unattractive appearance. The soiling of the hair necessitates shampooing with regularity.
Shampooing cleans the hair by removing excess soil and sebum. However, shampooing can leave the hair in a wet, tangled, and generally unmanageable state. Once the hair dries, it is often left in a dry, rough, lusterless, or frizzy condition due to removal of the hair's natural oils and other natural conditioning and moisturizing components. The hair can further be left with increased levels of static upon drying which can interfere with combing and result in a condition commonly referred to as “fly-away hair”, or contribute to an undesirable phenomena of “split ends”, particularly for long hair.
A variety of approaches have been developed to alleviate these after-shampoo problems. These approaches range from post-shampoo application of hair conditioner such as leave-on and rinse-off products, to hair conditioning shampoos which attempt to both cleanse and condition the hair from a single product. Although some consumers prefer the ease and convenience of a shampoo which includes conditioners, a substantial proportion of consumers prefer the more conventional conditioner formulations which are applied to the hair as a separate step from shampooing, usually subsequent to shampooing. Such consumers who prefer the conventional conditioner formulations value the relatively higher conditioning effect, or convenience of changing the amount of conditioning depending on the condition of hair or portion of hair.
Conditioning formulations can be in the form of rinse-off products or leave-on products, and can be in the form of an emulsion, cream, gel, spray, and mousse. Products in the form of cream, gel, and mousse are suitable in that the consumer can easily control the amount and distribution of the product. As such, these products are particularly suitable for leave-on products.
Leave-on products having aesthetic advantages are preferred by the consumer. Transparent or nearly transparent products including distinct visible particles are particularly preferred with regard to aesthetics. To deliver a product having such aesthetics in a stable product, a polymeric material capable of providing a suitable viscosity to suspend the visible particles is necessary. However, conventional leave-on products are not completely satisfactory in providing such aesthetic effects while delivering good feel on the hair and hands upon usage.
Based on the foregoing, there remains a desire to provide hair conditioning compositions suitable for leave-on use which provide favorable aesthetic benefits, are easy to apply on the hair, and leave the hair and hands with a clean feeling.
None of the existing art provides all of the advantages and benefits of the present invention.